Are you kidding me? I'm a recovering WoW addict and one of the most impressive aspects of the game to me is how often they fix bugs and make minor additions. Yes, the next real add-on is on the way, but think about all the changes that they have made. The funny little holliday events like Orphan Day, constantly tweaking the talent system to balance the classes, constant addition of new instances, the new battle grounds, the latest invasion storyline, a weekly scheduled patch that introduces *real* fixes...
To say that they've been lax in adding new content is simply untrue. You may not like WoW or Blizzard, but they pulled off one hell of a feat that appeals to a much wider audience than the diehard Dungeons & Dragons crowd who always seem to gripe about it. My old guild had grandparents, husband & wife couples, parents and their children, girls playing with babies sleeping in their laps. The draw of WoW is nothing less than amazing to me.
Wow, I don't care if he made Santa Claus Secretary of Defense. The fact is that up until Bush took office, Nixon tried the hardest to circumvent the Constitution to create a "unitary executive" branch. His legacy is that we still have hordes of his neocon disciples (many of whom are in office now) who believe in what he was trying to do and in fact are pushing his ideas even further.
As for the accomplishments you've listed, some of them are suspect. The China deal was a very self-serving effort to build a rift between the two largest Communist powers. He didn't exactly end the Vietnam war without a cattle prod to his backside and the Pentagon Papers proved he never had a secret plan to end it. The STS ended up being underfunded anyway and developing into the engineering hack we have today. I'm not an economist, but leaving the gold standard seems to have opened the door to massive debts and accounting magic. That's just what I can remember off the top of my head.
I admit he was a skilled politician. Read "Nixon in Winter." It's amazing how many politicians including presidents were secretly going to him for advice. Clinton spoke to him I think once a month according to Monica Crowley.
Actually, I didn't. I'd always assumed that this was a Whitehouse "Correspondents Dinner" not a "Whitehouse Correspondents'" Dinner. I stand corrected.
Taking what Colbert did as some deliberate act to sabotage Wikipedia is about as ridiculous as the Bush administration inviting him to the Whitehouse Correspondents Dinner and expecting him to shower the President with praise. Colbert was trying to make the point that the majority opinion isn't necessarily the right opinion. One of the tenets of our government is to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. So, when you hear politicians crying for straight up-and-down votes when our republican (little 'r') government empowers the minority party to fight against it (via the filibuster), you should remember that we don't live in a democracy.
That whole skit was also a clever take on how those in power love to rewrite history to put themselves in a better light.
This shouldn't be news to Americans. If you've paid attention to the antics in the last 3 election cycles and the discrepancies between exit polling and actual results, you'd know what's going on. Same thing just happened in Mexico. Expect it to happen here in November. Democrats leading in races by 5% or so, then a miraculous Republican turnout (contradicted by all polls) will maintain their majority. Anyone who protests the results or points out election day shennanigans will be ostracized by the "liberal" media as a whiney sore loser. Welcome to Oceania.
These scare tactics have a wider scope in the mobile market; see Microsoft's new application security model. Now, every binary you install on a smartphone has to be signed by a certificate authority (Verisign or GetTrust I think). Developers get the shaft since they don't allow you to purchase your own certificate, you have to purchase blocks of "signing events" that us use for the authority to sign your binaries for you. The events are individually cheap, but if you have to resign every installer and updated binary every time you make a change, you're talking serious bucks. One newsgroup poster claimed he'd be paying about $10K a year for application signing. So, a little FUD gets converted into a lot of profit for the corporate bigshots.
God forbid this new security model makes its way to the desktop. We're probably going to see the death of the one-man shop for mobile device products as a result of this shameless money grab.
The speed wouldn't be the problem, it would have to be high-G loads from tight turns in a dogfight. Plus, dogfights almost never get supersonic, if ever.
OK, what if I make the claim that we need to start think about exploring other galaxies and if we don't do so now, "it will never become realistic"? My point is not to abandon the idea, but that we're SO far from being able to sustain space colonies that we need to focus on the real obstacles. We don't have the fundamental building blocks in place to do much grand planning in space; whether it be tourism, settling, or commercial enterprise.
IMO, space colonization is about as far-fetched an idea right now as sending a probe to another solar system. How about talking about next-gen spacecraft that are reliable enough for manned missions and cheap enough to pull of these large-scale ideas. I guess my point is until we overcome some low-bar obstacles...
Efficient orbital transit (manned) Long-term habitation in space or on other planets (the moon's our probable test bed) Self-sustaining facilities...all of these other pie-in-the-sky notions aren't really worth much consideration. As for your point about establishing the foundations for future space exploration, I'm under the opinion that we need people up there so our focus will be with moving and supporting astronauts in space. Robots just aren't reliable and adaptable enough (I'm not sold on Bush's move towards a reliance on robots). Too many things can go wrong with expensive missions that would be disastrous without a human hand to tighten the bolts. I'm not a scientist, I'm just going by my layman's observations of the US space program.
I've always thought it was kind of goofy to be talking about space colonization at this point in the space age. We're nowhere near capable of sustaining ourselves independent of earth or even proving we can live healthy and sustainable lives away from earth. Hell, we can't even reliable GET humans into space. One step at a time.
Yeah! Stupid liberal colleges with their homosexual, anti-God, welfare, socialist agenda. Now, ignore this "science" and get back to worshipping your wooden idols for more rain.
I can't understand why the dittoheads are crying about how Rush was treated. He got to turn himself in (think of all the other famous people forced to do perp walks), schedule his "arrest" date on a Friday afternoon (for news junkies, you realize this is when stories are the most likely to get buried because of the news cycle), and immediately before the hugest protest in American history AND the NFL draft. Plus, he gets to accept a sentence (fines and rehab) without a plea. I know lots of people (normal people) who the cops have let off on DUIs if they can get a lift, but I don't know anyone getting a sweetheart deal like Rush did. If you think poor Rushbo is getting a bad rap, do a poll of people you know.
In both the cases of Lincoln and FDR, the government made it pretty clear (too late) that these were unacceptable acts by the executive. These aren't precedents. As for "Filegate," it turned out to have about as much credibility to it as "TrooperGate." And, this was with independent counsel unlike the in-house treatment most of the Bush scandals are getting.
I call you that because this strained definition of leaker VS whistleblower originates from the Bush administration trying to equate their leaks of a CIA agent's identity to that of any other innocuous information fed to the press; and at the same time remove the saintly aura of *Whistleblower* status from the hordes of disillusioned executive branch employees who've now gone public.
That's a flat-out wrong definition used by the Karl Rovian apologists. What does a "leaker" do when the subject of contention is the executive branch? Go to the cops and let the case get dropped? A leaker is anyone who discloses protected information, regardless of the recipient. A whistleblower is leaker releasing evidence of illegal or unauthorized activity or a coverup of that activity.
I've been absolutely disgusted with the blind allegiance of my so-called brethren citizens who are actually gullible enough to propagate this nonsense. And, you know exactly what you're trying to do. Open your eyes and stand up against these tyrants before it's too late for ALL of us!
Over-engineering sure didn't help Columbia or Challenger avoid getting ripped to pieces. In fact, it was corporate world, petty interests over the concerns of bureaucratic engineers that caused both shuttle disasters. I have to wonder if you're an engineer, because attention to those little details like figuring exactly what your domain problem is is what makes a good engineer. I'd hate to drive over one of your bridges.
As for NASA crappers, they're expensive because it's hard to take a dump in zero-G without making a mess all over yourself. And, when there are only 5 seats that have ever been built, the R&D costs aren't as distributed over high-volume sales as your nice gravity-control porcelain models.
Oh yeah, and even basket weaver engineering takes more skill than "just not being a complete fucking moron." Watch one of those engineering disasters shows on the Discover channel and you'll see.
I used to be a Linux hobbyist, but the last few years when I want a Linux installation (whether for a desktop or a server), I go with the Mandriva style distros. They're not just for desktop users, they're also great for those of us who don't want to invest an entire day tweaking an install.
I'm not claiming that video games created violence, we're talking about trending and influences, not brainwashing. This isn't a black-white issue. I'm talking about putting tools in the hands of parents. Movie theaters took the step to enforce voluntary standards that parents find suitable. The video game industry took the "just enough to shut them up" approach and now the heat is back on. As for parents, is the government "raising your kids" when it makes it illegal for them to walk into a 7-11 and buy cigarettes or booze or porno mags? We as a society make the decision that there are some things we don't want minors exposed to. And, I agree that parents aren't doing a good job nowadays based on my 2 year stint working in a high school.
Wow, I really hated the bias of this comment. We're talking about raising socially responsible children, not the responsibility to your cultural beliefs. We're talking about influences on children that will make them in general worse citizens as they get older. Like it or not, the unrealistic violence in movies and video games does in fact desensitize children. Amazing how often in interviews with people who commit assaults or kill how they always seem to so shocked by the actual damage a bullet does, how much blood wounds produce, the way the human body reacts to traumatic injuries, etc. Why do people have this cartoonish notion of what violence really looks like?
I also hate the "it's the parents' responsibility" blow-off. Yes, parents have to be responsible, but there are human limits and we all as citizens have social responsibilities to help parents. Parents can't possibly watch their children 24-7, and if they did it usually creates a pretty dysfunctional child. Even if you hate kids and arent going to have any, you sure as hell will expect the younger generations to fill in for you when you progress in age and position.
I congratulate you on your success, but starting a profitable software business isn't as easy as "just find some kind of niche software, program it yourself in your spare time, and start selling it online." You aren't giving yourself enough credit.
I don't know if it's been attempted, but one of the standards organizations should come up with a voluntary method for porn sites to mark their content as such. If it catches on, the stragglers should be much easier to manage with a potential "non-compliance list" like there is for open mail relays. It looks like a win-win to me. I can't imagine porn providers want to waste bandwidth on window shoppers.
Alberto "Waterboard" Gonzales should be pushing something like this instead of trying to intimidate people with a law that won't stand the Constitutional test.
Nice use of non sequitors to make your case. So, only tin pot dictators start unnecessary wars? Globalization is the only way to cure hunger? Very recent history should show you how wrong you are, I leave it as an exercise for you "far-right types" to pick up a newspaper and prove it.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you kidding me? I'm a recovering WoW addict and one of the most impressive aspects of the game to me is how often they fix bugs and make minor additions. Yes, the next real add-on is on the way, but think about all the changes that they have made. The funny little holliday events like Orphan Day, constantly tweaking the talent system to balance the classes, constant addition of new instances, the new battle grounds, the latest invasion storyline, a weekly scheduled patch that introduces *real* fixes...
To say that they've been lax in adding new content is simply untrue. You may not like WoW or Blizzard, but they pulled off one hell of a feat that appeals to a much wider audience than the diehard Dungeons & Dragons crowd who always seem to gripe about it. My old guild had grandparents, husband & wife couples, parents and their children, girls playing with babies sleeping in their laps. The draw of WoW is nothing less than amazing to me.
Wow, I don't care if he made Santa Claus Secretary of Defense. The fact is that up until Bush took office, Nixon tried the hardest to circumvent the Constitution to create a "unitary executive" branch. His legacy is that we still have hordes of his neocon disciples (many of whom are in office now) who believe in what he was trying to do and in fact are pushing his ideas even further.
As for the accomplishments you've listed, some of them are suspect. The China deal was a very self-serving effort to build a rift between the two largest Communist powers. He didn't exactly end the Vietnam war without a cattle prod to his backside and the Pentagon Papers proved he never had a secret plan to end it. The STS ended up being underfunded anyway and developing into the engineering hack we have today. I'm not an economist, but leaving the gold standard seems to have opened the door to massive debts and accounting magic. That's just what I can remember off the top of my head.
I admit he was a skilled politician. Read "Nixon in Winter." It's amazing how many politicians including presidents were secretly going to him for advice. Clinton spoke to him I think once a month according to Monica Crowley.
Actually, I didn't. I'd always assumed that this was a Whitehouse "Correspondents Dinner" not a "Whitehouse Correspondents'" Dinner. I stand corrected.
Taking what Colbert did as some deliberate act to sabotage Wikipedia is about as ridiculous as the Bush administration inviting him to the Whitehouse Correspondents Dinner and expecting him to shower the President with praise. Colbert was trying to make the point that the majority opinion isn't necessarily the right opinion. One of the tenets of our government is to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. So, when you hear politicians crying for straight up-and-down votes when our republican (little 'r') government empowers the minority party to fight against it (via the filibuster), you should remember that we don't live in a democracy. That whole skit was also a clever take on how those in power love to rewrite history to put themselves in a better light.
This shouldn't be news to Americans. If you've paid attention to the antics in the last 3 election cycles and the discrepancies between exit polling and actual results, you'd know what's going on. Same thing just happened in Mexico. Expect it to happen here in November. Democrats leading in races by 5% or so, then a miraculous Republican turnout (contradicted by all polls) will maintain their majority. Anyone who protests the results or points out election day shennanigans will be ostracized by the "liberal" media as a whiney sore loser. Welcome to Oceania.
These scare tactics have a wider scope in the mobile market; see Microsoft's new application security model. Now, every binary you install on a smartphone has to be signed by a certificate authority (Verisign or GetTrust I think). Developers get the shaft since they don't allow you to purchase your own certificate, you have to purchase blocks of "signing events" that us use for the authority to sign your binaries for you. The events are individually cheap, but if you have to resign every installer and updated binary every time you make a change, you're talking serious bucks. One newsgroup poster claimed he'd be paying about $10K a year for application signing. So, a little FUD gets converted into a lot of profit for the corporate bigshots.
God forbid this new security model makes its way to the desktop. We're probably going to see the death of the one-man shop for mobile device products as a result of this shameless money grab.
The speed wouldn't be the problem, it would have to be high-G loads from tight turns in a dogfight. Plus, dogfights almost never get supersonic, if ever.
OK, what if I make the claim that we need to start think about exploring other galaxies and if we don't do so now, "it will never become realistic"? My point is not to abandon the idea, but that we're SO far from being able to sustain space colonies that we need to focus on the real obstacles. We don't have the fundamental building blocks in place to do much grand planning in space; whether it be tourism, settling, or commercial enterprise.
...all of these other pie-in-the-sky notions aren't really worth much consideration. As for your point about establishing the foundations for future space exploration, I'm under the opinion that we need people up there so our focus will be with moving and supporting astronauts in space. Robots just aren't reliable and adaptable enough (I'm not sold on Bush's move towards a reliance on robots). Too many things can go wrong with expensive missions that would be disastrous without a human hand to tighten the bolts. I'm not a scientist, I'm just going by my layman's observations of the US space program.
IMO, space colonization is about as far-fetched an idea right now as sending a probe to another solar system. How about talking about next-gen spacecraft that are reliable enough for manned missions and cheap enough to pull of these large-scale ideas. I guess my point is until we overcome some low-bar obstacles...
Efficient orbital transit (manned)
Long-term habitation in space or on other planets (the moon's our probable test bed)
Self-sustaining facilities
I've always thought it was kind of goofy to be talking about space colonization at this point in the space age. We're nowhere near capable of sustaining ourselves independent of earth or even proving we can live healthy and sustainable lives away from earth. Hell, we can't even reliable GET humans into space. One step at a time.
Yeah! Stupid liberal colleges with their homosexual, anti-God, welfare, socialist agenda. Now, ignore this "science" and get back to worshipping your wooden idols for more rain.
I can't understand why the dittoheads are crying about how Rush was treated. He got to turn himself in (think of all the other famous people forced to do perp walks), schedule his "arrest" date on a Friday afternoon (for news junkies, you realize this is when stories are the most likely to get buried because of the news cycle), and immediately before the hugest protest in American history AND the NFL draft. Plus, he gets to accept a sentence (fines and rehab) without a plea. I know lots of people (normal people) who the cops have let off on DUIs if they can get a lift, but I don't know anyone getting a sweetheart deal like Rush did. If you think poor Rushbo is getting a bad rap, do a poll of people you know.
Hey! You spelled humor with a 'u' and minimise with an 's'. Learn to type English! Stupid Brits...
In both the cases of Lincoln and FDR, the government made it pretty clear (too late) that these were unacceptable acts by the executive. These aren't precedents. As for "Filegate," it turned out to have about as much credibility to it as "TrooperGate." And, this was with independent counsel unlike the in-house treatment most of the Bush scandals are getting.
s tm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/680841.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filegate
I call you that because this strained definition of leaker VS whistleblower originates from the Bush administration trying to equate their leaks of a CIA agent's identity to that of any other innocuous information fed to the press; and at the same time remove the saintly aura of *Whistleblower* status from the hordes of disillusioned executive branch employees who've now gone public.
It must have had a flux capacitor because I read this story a few days ago.
That's a flat-out wrong definition used by the Karl Rovian apologists. What does a "leaker" do when the subject of contention is the executive branch? Go to the cops and let the case get dropped? A leaker is anyone who discloses protected information, regardless of the recipient. A whistleblower is leaker releasing evidence of illegal or unauthorized activity or a coverup of that activity.
I've been absolutely disgusted with the blind allegiance of my so-called brethren citizens who are actually gullible enough to propagate this nonsense. And, you know exactly what you're trying to do. Open your eyes and stand up against these tyrants before it's too late for ALL of us!
Well, now that we have the libertarian opinion...
Over-engineering sure didn't help Columbia or Challenger avoid getting ripped to pieces. In fact, it was corporate world, petty interests over the concerns of bureaucratic engineers that caused both shuttle disasters. I have to wonder if you're an engineer, because attention to those little details like figuring exactly what your domain problem is is what makes a good engineer. I'd hate to drive over one of your bridges.
As for NASA crappers, they're expensive because it's hard to take a dump in zero-G without making a mess all over yourself. And, when there are only 5 seats that have ever been built, the R&D costs aren't as distributed over high-volume sales as your nice gravity-control porcelain models.
Oh yeah, and even basket weaver engineering takes more skill than "just not being a complete fucking moron." Watch one of those engineering disasters shows on the Discover channel and you'll see.
BODY
{
duplicates:true;
salacious_baseless_story_padding:true;
spell_check:false;
microsoft_hate:true;
cmdr_taco:#001EEt;
}
I used to be a Linux hobbyist, but the last few years when I want a Linux installation (whether for a desktop or a server), I go with the Mandriva style distros. They're not just for desktop users, they're also great for those of us who don't want to invest an entire day tweaking an install.
I'm sure his little hands will be big enough to work one of the sewing machines in my basement. BTW, I babysit dirt cheap.
I'm not claiming that video games created violence, we're talking about trending and influences, not brainwashing. This isn't a black-white issue. I'm talking about putting tools in the hands of parents. Movie theaters took the step to enforce voluntary standards that parents find suitable. The video game industry took the "just enough to shut them up" approach and now the heat is back on. As for parents, is the government "raising your kids" when it makes it illegal for them to walk into a 7-11 and buy cigarettes or booze or porno mags? We as a society make the decision that there are some things we don't want minors exposed to. And, I agree that parents aren't doing a good job nowadays based on my 2 year stint working in a high school.
Wow, I really hated the bias of this comment. We're talking about raising socially responsible children, not the responsibility to your cultural beliefs. We're talking about influences on children that will make them in general worse citizens as they get older. Like it or not, the unrealistic violence in movies and video games does in fact desensitize children. Amazing how often in interviews with people who commit assaults or kill how they always seem to so shocked by the actual damage a bullet does, how much blood wounds produce, the way the human body reacts to traumatic injuries, etc. Why do people have this cartoonish notion of what violence really looks like?
I also hate the "it's the parents' responsibility" blow-off. Yes, parents have to be responsible, but there are human limits and we all as citizens have social responsibilities to help parents. Parents can't possibly watch their children 24-7, and if they did it usually creates a pretty dysfunctional child. Even if you hate kids and arent going to have any, you sure as hell will expect the younger generations to fill in for you when you progress in age and position.
I congratulate you on your success, but starting a profitable software business isn't as easy as "just find some kind of niche software, program it yourself in your spare time, and start selling it online." You aren't giving yourself enough credit.
I don't know if it's been attempted, but one of the standards organizations should come up with a voluntary method for porn sites to mark their content as such. If it catches on, the stragglers should be much easier to manage with a potential "non-compliance list" like there is for open mail relays. It looks like a win-win to me. I can't imagine porn providers want to waste bandwidth on window shoppers.
Alberto "Waterboard" Gonzales should be pushing something like this instead of trying to intimidate people with a law that won't stand the Constitutional test.
Nice use of non sequitors to make your case. So, only tin pot dictators start unnecessary wars? Globalization is the only way to cure hunger? Very recent history should show you how wrong you are, I leave it as an exercise for you "far-right types" to pick up a newspaper and prove it.